I have been publishing videos online for almost 15 years now. When I first started putting videos online there was no real online drumming community yet. YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook didn’t even exist. The closest thing was an online message board.
As the landscape of the internet has changed, so has my interaction with my online students. To begin with, it was very much a one-way conversation. I would film a lesson, post it online, and hope that it helped someone. Now it’s completely different! I film a lesson, post it online, and millions of people could potentially watch it and comment on it through the many social platforms available. On platforms such as YouTube, there is almost total anonymity with user accounts. Viewers aren’t held accountable for the things that they say. They can say anything they want and no one will know it was them.
This opens the door for haters to hate on a whole new level. People have called me all sorts of names, told me I suck at drums and don’t deserve any success, judged my character, questioned my morals, and so much more.
At first, I took huge offense to this. It sucks being judged so harshly by people who have no idea who I am or where my heart is at. My intention with Drumeo is always to support drummers in the most positive and sustainable way possible. But when haters are sitting at home, they don’t think about the results of their comments.
Over the years I’ve really grown thicker skin and it doesn’t bother me at all anymore. Now, when I see ignorance, most of the time I just laugh it off. That’s just the way it is and I prefer to fight back with kindness rather than battle them on their level.
But now consider this for a moment: If I’ve had experience with this, what about the drummers who are just starting out uploading videos?
Well, that’s why I’m writing this. This is for YOU or so you can share this article with someone who you know may need it. So here are a few tips to help you fight through the negativity so you can become a better drummer.
For me, I upload videos to:
1) Educate drummers
2) Inspire drummers
3) Share my progress
As long as the content in my videos meets any of those criteria, I don’t care what anybody else says. For example, I recently released a video of me playing along to a song called “Cyborg Electronica” and there were some negative comments on the video. I easily brushed those off as there are so many other people saying that they enjoyed the video, it inspired them to practice, and they had questions about what I was playing. This is a huge success for me.
Some other reason you could upload videos might be:
1) You want feedback on your drumming
2) You want to share drum covers of your favorite songs
3) You want to build a video library of your drumming history.
All of those are great reasons. It’s so important to first figure out WHY you want to do something. This will help you frame the feedback you get in a better way. Rather than getting upset by a negative comment, you can brush it off because you KNOW in your heart the exact reasons you did it.
Trolls and haters are usually socially inept, so they don’t know how to communicate their feedback in a way that would actually create a positive and productive conversation. They instead resort to name calling. Some haters actually have good ideas that are shadowed by the negativity surrounding their post, so look for the positive within that.
For example, someone commented on one of my videos and said:
It’s easy for me to read that and feel hurt, but that’s not productive. I would NEVER talk to someone like this online and definitely not in real life. But if I take my own advice to find the positive, I will realize that maybe some of the riffs did seem too much like pre-planned parts and lacked the musicality that I know I can have with practice. So I will continue to work on playing musically, getting patterns under my hands so good that I don’t have to think of them, and just try and build a more fluid solo overall.
You need to have realistic expectations, especially with the way things are on the internet. If you expect to have a few haters then you won’t be surprised when they show up. But I can guarantee you that for every one negative comment there will be ten positives, so don’t worry too much about it.
If you learn to deal with the negativity you’re going to enjoy sharing your drumming with the world more. This is why I think an online community like we have at Drumeo.com is so important. The culture and values of a positive environment is built into the learning platform from the top down. We love all students, any level, any age, and any skill level. We want to help drummers to reach their goals. If you want some support, please join us at Drumeo.com. And as always, if you have any questions, please comment below or email me: jared@drumeo.com
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